2004: Year of the Green Machine

The hybrid car may finally reach its destination on the long road to respectability in 2004, thanks in part to strong demand for the new Toyota Prius.

The sales of fuel-efficient, gas-electric vehicles are expected to more than double next year, surpassing 100,000 worldwide, as Detroit finally hops on board.

According to experts, achieving the six-figure milestone is an important early step in making hybrids available in showrooms everywhere.

Hybrid cars offer increased fuel efficiency and greatly reduced emissions by using an electric motor that helps with acceleration while idling to complement an internal combustion engine. Hybrids use the energy from braking to recharge batteries, and so do not have to be plugged in like electric cars do.

Hybrids have slowly rolled onto highways since Honda first introduced the Insight hybrid in 1999. Consumers have been reluctant to adopt hybrids because they are priced several thousand dollars higher than other cars in their class, and because the earliest models were very compact.

According to market-analysis firm J.D. Power and Associates, approximately 40,000 hybrid vehicles will have been sold in 2003, about half coming from Honda's Insight and Civic, and the remaining sales from the Toyota Prius.

Earlier this month, Toyota said demand for its next-generation Prius has been so high since it debuted in October that the company is increasing production from 36,000 cars to 47,000 for the American market for 2004. Toyota spokesman Sam Butto said more than 16,000 Priuses were pre-ordered, and the company has yet to fill all the requests. Butto said Toyota sold 5,584 Priuses in November 2003, shattering the previous record.

The four-door sedan Prius has given hybrids legitimacy with auto experts, winning the Car of the Year award from Motor Trend magazine and 2004 Design of the Year from Automobile Magazine. Car and Driver named it one of the top 10 vehicles of the year. Worldwide sales of the Prius alone could approach 100,000 in 2004, as Toyota boosts production from 7,500 to 10,000 cars a month starting in the spring of 2004, according to Butto.

Selling 100,000 hybrids in a year would show that "hybrid technology is not just flash in the pan," said Karl Brauer, editor-in-chief of car-review website Edmunds.com. However, Brauer said hybrids will be considered a success only when they are available in every major class of vehicle (such as SUV, pickup truck, sports car) and from a wider variety of manufacturers.

Several of those categories may be filled by announced -- if not available -- products by the end of 2004. Brauer said consumers looking for a family-size vehicle can expect Honda to ship an Odyssey hybrid minivan in 2004.

Toyota's Butto said the company's Lexus division will announce a Lexus RX 330 SUV in January at the Detroit Auto Show that will ship later in the year, and a Toyota Highlander SUV that will be out in 2005. Butto also said hybrid technology can easily be added to other Toyota models.

"There's no reason why hybrid technology wouldn't be included in all of Toyota's lines in the near future," he said.

American automakers, however, have been conspicuously slow to produce hybrids.

Brauer said Ford was the first U.S. carmaker to announce a hybrid, but its plan to roll out the Escape hybrid SUV has been delayed several times, including most recently because of problems with incompatible electronics between Ford and an external supplier. Ford recently announced that production of the Escape hybrid would begin in the summer of 2004, and the company hopes to have the vehicles for sale by the end of next year.

Edmunds' Brauer said cost, not technology, is the primary limitation on hybrid production. A $3,000 price premium over standard cars takes about a decade to repay in fuel efficiency, according to Brauer, so "most consumers who buy hybrids today are those who really want to feel good about driving a car that doesn't pollute."

Some of that price differential has been covered by a federal tax credit that is scheduled to end in 2007. Consumers who bought a hybrid in 2003 receive a $2,000 tax credit, which drops to $1,500 next year. The hybrid credit would have been extended as part of a comprehensive energy bill, but the legislation failed to pass in November.

2004 may be a mere pit stop on the road to getting 1 million hybrids on the highways. John Tews, a spokesman for J.D. Power and Associates, said in an e-mail, "We expect (hybrid) sales to increase to approximately 177,000 in 2005 and 344,000 by 2008."